British barrister Natasha Hausdorff speaks with StandWithUs Canada executive director Jesse Primerano in Toronto on June 11, as part of a four-city Canadian tour. <\/i>(photo by Dave Gordon)<\/i><\/p>\n
British barrister Natasha Hausdorff is challenging prevailing narratives about Israel\u2019s legal rights, arguing that the uti possidetis juris<\/i> principle of international law \u2013 which mandates that newly independent states inherit their predecessor\u2019s borders \u2013 undermines claims of \u201cillegal occupation\u201d and \u201csettlements\u201d in the West Bank and Gaza, and exposes what she calls a double standard in global responses to territorial disputes.<\/p>\n
Hosted by StandWithUs Canada, Hausdorff spoke June 9 in Vancouver, at King David High School. On June 10, she was in Calgary and, on June 12, Montreal. On June 11, she spoke in Toronto at the Nova Exhibition, which features videos, presentations and artifacts from the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the Nova music festival in Israel. (See jewishindependent.ca\/ visiting-the-nova-exhibition.)<\/p>\n
Uti possidetis juris<\/i> \u201cis a universal rule that applies as a default wherever there is no agreement to the contrary,\u201d Hausdorff explained at the Toronto talk. Mandatory Palestine \u2013 which included today\u2019s Israel, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza \u2013 would, by law, become Israel\u2019s territory, at the time of independence.<\/p>\n
In 1967, Israel recovered Judea and Samaria, the eastern part of Jerusalem and Gaza, and expected a forthcoming \u201cland for peace\u201d formula with Jordan, she said. But, in the 1994 peace agreement between the two countries, Jordan stepped back from any demands for territory.<\/p>\n
Hausdorff said there are modern parallels, giving as an example the \u201cconsensus that Russia has occupied Crimea from Ukraine.\u201d According to international law, once the Soviet Union collapsed and its former states declared independence, the states inherited the previous borders, which means Crimea is Ukrainian territory.<\/p>\n
If Ukraine were to recover Crimea from Russia in the same way that Israel recovered East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria from Jordan in 1967, she said, most likely no one except for Russia would complain Ukraine had taken what didn\u2019t belong to them.<\/p>\n
She sees world bodies guilty of a double standard, \u201ca total inversion of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot have a general rule and an exception for a country you don\u2019t like very much, that you have some political or ideological opposition to,\u201d she said. \u201cYou cannot occupy what is your own sovereign territory \u2013 it puts the lie to illegal settlements, which is predicated on calling this land occupied.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hausdorff, an expert in international law, regularly briefs politicians and organizations worldwide on legal matters, and has spoken at parliaments across Europe.<\/p>\n
On the charge of genocide against Israel, she said Amnesty International\u2019s report with the allegation had faulty methodology \u2013 including using \u201clocal authorities in Gaza,\u201d a codeword for Hamas, as a source. The report cycled through several parts of the United Nations and, in turn, made its way to the International Court of Justice, she said.<\/p>\n
The \u201cdisinformation cycle\u201d continues to spin its way through the media, who \u201care complicit in parroting this Hamas propaganda and in snuffing out the realities of the situation,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Several issues cast a pall over the international court, including that it has no jurisdiction over Israel, which isn\u2019t a signatory \u2013 and neither is the Palestinian Authority, for lack of a state, said Hausdorff.<\/p>\n
The International Court of Justice lost more credibility when, last year, it called for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, she said. \u201cThat is unacceptable on every basic moral level. The position that Jews should not live in certain areas simply because they are Jews is what is being advocated by the international community?\u201d she questioned.<\/p>\n
The court\u2019s former president, Nawaf Salam, who left his post earlier this year to become Lebanon\u2019s prime minister, had called Israel a terror state while he was an ambassador to the UN. \u201cA judge like that would need to recuse himself,\u201d she said, owing to a clear conflict of interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are going to be honest about the drivers of this conflict,\u201d she said, it would be \u201cindoctrination to terror, incentivization to terror \u2013 that is what the international community needs to commit itself to counter.\u201d<\/p>\n
StandWithUs Canada executive director Jesse Primerano told the Jewish Independent <\/i>that the speaking tour\u2019s goal was for attendees \u201cto hear the legal truths buried beneath the headlines.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWith Israel\u2019s legitimacy and actions constantly under scrutiny, it\u2019s more important than ever to turn to experts who can clarify the facts,\u201d said Primerano.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat became most clear over the week,\u201d he said, \u201cwas this: in a world where truth is often distorted, Canadians are eager for clear, fact-based insight to push back against the rising tide of misleading narratives.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n